Overview
Over the last decade, foundations, governments, and advocacy organizations have launched numerous efforts to increase student success in community colleges. Key to many of these initiatives is the use of data to identify gaps in achievement, articulate areas for improvement, and highlight effective approaches. However, there is often a disconnect between data being made available and colleges’ abilities to integrate this information into their improvement efforts. The RP Group’s own formative research on the use of evidence by California Community Colleges highlighted this disconnect and surfaced different types of information that would be more useful to practitioners for improving student success.
The Bridging Research, Information, and Culture (BRIC) Initiative strengthened cultures of inquiry and evidence in the California Community College system via three, complementary means:
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Resources for community college practitioners: development of online tools and implementation of numerous professional development opportunities
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Technical assistance to colleges: provision of tailored support from seasoned researchers and faculty to 13 institutions focused on increasing each college’s capacity to analyze and act on information, based on locally-identified needs
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Dedicated support for institutional researchers and planners: deployment of both online and in-person support focused on strengthening researchers’ abilities to facilitate the use of evidence
RP Group Lead
Rob Johnstone
RP Group Project Team Members
Kathy Booth, Priyadarshini Chaplot, MBA
Funders
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
News and Events
This project is complete. Visit "Related Projects" below to learn about our other initiatives in this project's area(s) of impact.